30 plus years in a factory has taken its toll on my hearing. Odd thing is my wife's tone is what went first.
As Paul stated, it is kinda funny trying to figure out what people actually said.

I had many severe earaches as a small child and developed tinnitus at the age of 8 after shooting a handgun with no hearing protection. Shooting for many years after that with no protection did not help either and racing snowmobiles and working in a noisy paper mill for 37 years all took their toll. I was exempt from military service because of it and really have problems figuring out what is said by anyone wearing a mask....especially most women. Closed captioning on the TV really helps and I discovered that the lyrics to most songs are far different than what I always thought they were. I see that I am not alone here. Misery loves company.

I wear bluetooth headphones while I watch TV now. Helps a million. I'm only 50 too. You youger guys take care of your hearing!

It's like everything as we get older , we lose the waist line , the 6 pack we were proud of , and our hair !

yes , where hearing aids , and have ringing in ears all the time

Looking for new hearing aids.
So far the two expensive sets have only enhanced sounds that are painful - crackling and crisp sounds are the worst.
Any suggestions?

They can tone down, adjust, those irritating sounds. As for tv, can't hear a lot of the talking portions either. Drowned out by the loud music.

My wife has hearing aids. The new advances in them is unreal. hers connects to her phone. It works as a micro phone also so she gets sound from the aids and the phone. Watching tv was the worst before them. Still when a commercial comes on she mutes it. We dvr almost everything so we can fast forward thru the breaks. They can program them to pick up the tones and levels she struggles with. You have to shop around as hearing aids are a scam waiting to happen. Place in corbin Ky handles the same hearing aids as other places but she got EVERYTHING life time service plan 3- 6 months check ups. Free batteries for life for around 3 ,000 bucks. Other places wanted 7-10 grand for the same type aids. Her health plan paid 2,000 so it wasn't that bad.

Adding to this topic . Mask wearing REALLY hurt her understanding. You don't realize how much lip reading you do until you can't see peoples lips.

I knew that lip reading became half of my hearing. It was a surprise when my otolaryngologist came in wearing a mask with a plastic mouth window.

The better of two sets of hearing aids came from Sam’s Club. $2,000. They tuned out the crispy sounds as much as possible. After a couple an hour the sounds make me tired.

Playing acoustic guitar has become frustrating because I cannot hear what is necessary. Beethoven has become even more amazing.

I got a new pair last fall they weren't cheap@ 6000.00 dollars! lucky the wife ins paid 4000.00 of the cost.
I had to get hearing aids that sit outside your ears because my hearing is shot. These new aids help a lot,
but it's not like having your hearing back. My wife and granddaughter still laugh@ me because of the
things I think they say. But I can at least have a conversation now. Construction and trap shooting done me in!!

I have a real problem hearing Liberals. It’s not because of the crap in my ears. It’s because of the crap coming out of their mouth.

I have selective hearing too.

Whats that?

Selective hearing is wisdom applied by intentionally ignoring nonsense or worse that someone is blowing.

In my experience with only two sets, the both amplify sounds and add too much treble. They do not untangle the mumbled distorted sounding words. They make what I cannot understand louder. They need an anti-mumble feature.

Some people around me claim "I'm deef", but I think I hear fine. Just speak up and quit mumbling dad blame it!